Happy Messy Scary Love

by Leah Konen

  “What is it?” he asks. “You look, I don’t know, surprised. Tell you the truth, I thought I was giving off pretty solid nerd vibes already.”

  For a second, I want to confess everything. That it’s me, Carrie, and I love horror as much as he does, and I have new recommendations for him, that I can deliver in person now instead of online.

  I want to tell him that it’s serendipitous, almost, the way we’ve been thrown together like this. Like Jigsaw in the Saw movies, someone pulling the strings—only not in such a gruesome and nefarious way.

  Only how in the world do I explain why I lied to him in the first place? I could say I was having a shit day. I could say I know I shouldn’t have ever sent him Katie’s photo—or let him think I was going to NYU. But how?

  My tiny little lies have caught up to me in a way I couldn’t possibly have imagined. They’ve grown much, much bigger—overnight.

  “Come on, you guys,” Bryson calls from the other side of the bridge, the whole group having crossed while I stood here trying to figure out what the hell to say to Jake.

  “Guess we should get over there,” Jake says.

  “Yeah we probably should,” I say.

  He steps a little closer and smiles. “I know, I know. It’s the horror movies, right? Most people think if you’re into horror you have to be some kind of death-obsessed loser. Hopefully you won’t judge me too hard on that, since we only just met.”

  I don’t think that. I would never think that.

  “Let me guess, horror isn’t your thing?” Jake says. “It’s cool. Promise. A lot of people aren’t into it.”

  My breath catches in my throat. I want to tell him, to tell him everything.

  But I feel so high from jumping off that zip line, from something finally working out, I don’t want this good feeling to come crashing down. I’m scared to reveal even a hint of the truth lest he figures it all out.

  I make a snap decision, just like I did jumping off that cliff.

  Only this time, I double down.

  “Nah.” I force it out, my heart already aching at the lie. “Horror’s not really my thing.”

  The Bad Decision Handbook: Part Two

  “Looks like you got some sun,” my dad says as soon as I get into the car. “We’ll have to load up on SPF fifty for the rest of the summer.”

  My mom, meanwhile, is just staring at me—no bullshit, as usual. “How was it?”

  Well, Mom, I’ve begun living a double life. See, the boy I’ve been secretly messaging and chatting with for months, but haven’t told you about because it was too embarrassing, is inexplicably working here, too. So now I have to pretend I’m someone I’m not so he doesn’t realize I felt too crappy about myself to send him a photo. I’m officially a catfisher now. Yay! I’ll be featured on a Netflix documentary any day now . . .

  “Olivia?” she asks. “It wasn’t that bad, was it? I know the heights thing, but—”

  “No, Mom,” I say, forcing a laugh. “It was great, actually. Everyone was super nice. And I did the zip line and didn’t even freak out. Well, I only freaked out a little bit, at least, at the beginning. I actually really liked it.”

  The smiles on the both of them, like they won the lottery or something.

  I smile, too, because what I said is true. It was awesome, surprisingly so. Steinway is cooler than I could have imagined, everyone was chill, and I did it. I stepped off that ledge. For once, I stopped being scared, stopped letting that damn Dracula audition define me. For once, I felt like me again.

  The whole double-life thing is just a blip on the radar. It was still a good day.

  “Er, thanks for hooking me up.”

  My mom laughs. “Anytime!”

  As we pull out of the parking lot, I check my phone for the first time. It’s a Reddit message from Elm, sent around 2 p.m., just as my shift was starting.

  ElmStreetNightmare84: Hey, Carrie, what’s up?

  I stare at it, briefly. At first it’s strange, reconciling the witty guy who’s been in my inbox for months with the semi-awkward dude making dad jokes on the zip-line course. And then, all at once, it’s not. Queen of the Quizzically Terrifying, Justice of Jump Scares—all that. He’s the same guy, cheesy humor and all, only his humor plays better on the internet, just like mine does.

  I want to write him back, talk to him like I always do; but instead, I tap out of the message. Even though I’m safely in the car, it feels too risky to respond right here, as if he’ll somehow know the geographic location of my response.

  So I shove the phone deep into my backpack, into a zippered pocket, as if I can shut it all away.

  On the way home, we stop at the German sausage and meat place my parents like to hit up when we grill outside. We take a number, and women in traditional dresses fill paper bags with bratwurst, kielbasa, and smoked pork ribs. Back at our house, Dad lights up the Weber grill we keep in the yard, and for a couple of hours, I put today’s parallel-universe weirdness out of my mind.

  We sit on the porch and eat our sausages and ribs, scooping potato salad and coleslaw out of plastic containers. Chrissy texts me, asking how it was, I give her the rundown, and we banter for a bit. The air is cool and the sun is setting, casting the sky with pinks and purples, turning the mountains a darker shade of blue, and for a little bit, it’s perfect.

  As I’m helping my parents finish the dishes, my phone buzzes in my pocket.

  I finish up, dry off my hands, and there it is—another message from Elm.

  ElmStreetNightmare84: Hey, stranger, didn’t hear from you all day!

  My silence since his earlier message is definitely unusual.

  “I’m going to go to my room,” I announce to my parents, who are enmeshed in choosing their documentary for the evening.

  “Watching a horror movie?” my dad asks. “Make sure to use your headphones. I don’t want to hear any zombie screams while we’re trying to learn about the historical context of the Voting Rights Act.”

  “It was one time, Dad. And they weren’t zombies. They were vampires. And it was a really pivotal scene.”

  He laughs, clicking Play on the TV. My parents like to give me hell about how much TV I watch, but I always want to ask them: Where do they think I got it from?

  I shut the door behind me. From my window, I can just barely see hints of the last light peeking over the mountains, the moon hanging in the sky like a shadow. Somewhere, not that far away, Elm-Jake is messaging me from beneath the same sky.

  I sink into bed and open the Reddit app, Elm’s words staring back at me.

  What in the world can I possibly say? If I tell him the truth, it will make me, a person he’s going to be working with every day now, look nuts. He’ll tell Steinway, and my position as the crew weirdo will be instantly cemented.

  I jump. There’s another message.

  ElmStreetNightmare84: I can see you’re on. I’m like the ghost that lives in your screen now . . .

  ElmStreetNightmare84: Sorry, that was supposed to be funny but now it just sounds creepy

  ElmStreetNightmare84: Creepy like bad creepy, not good horror-movie creepy

  ElmStreetNightmare84: I’m digging myself deeper now, aren’t I?

  I can’t watch him struggle anymore.

  CarriesRevenge01: LOL don’t worry you’re only ever the good kind of creepy

  ElmStreetNightmare84: Aww, how sweet. How was your day?

  CarriesRevenge01: Pretty good, but busy. Learned a lot.

  (Not a lie.)

  CarriesRevenge01: Talked about horror movies.

  (Also not a lie.)

  CarriesRevenge01: Nightmare on Elm Street, actually.

  (Not-a-lie number three; I’m on a roll, here.)

  CarriesRevenge01: How was yours?

  The tiny dots appear, showing that he’s typing, but then they stop. After a moment, they start up again, and it hits me. I already liked Elm, everything about him, from our chatty banter to his adorable photo.

  But now tha
t I’ve seen him in real life, now that I’ve met Jake, awkwardly awesome dad-joke Jake, now that he’s held my hand, helped me get through my first zip-line experience, I really like him.

  I like him a lot.

  Another thought strikes me. Is it possible he likes me, too? Was there something there, when he held me by the arm, calming me down, when his hand laced through mine, leading me to the edge of the cliff? Could he grow to like Olivia as much as he likes Carrie?

  The dots pick up again, and I want so badly for him to mention me, Olivia, the new girl he met at work, wanting a hint, even so tiny, that he felt some kind of spark, too.

  ElmStreetNightmare84: Day was good, nothing crazy, just the same ole same ole at work. Tell me about your screenplay.

  The words hit me hard. Same ole, same ole. You couldn’t find a way to make it sound more unremarkable if you tried.

  I shake my head. This is silly. Elm is my internet friend, nothing more. I have to act normal, not like a weirdo who doesn’t know how to go about living a double life because she never meant to. What would Carrie say, if she hadn’t just met Jake in real life?

  CarriesRevenge01: Screenplay is in its nascent stages still . . .

  ElmStreetNightmare84: Like when the alien from Alien is just a pod thing? Before it invades your body and stuff?

  I laugh. The truth is, it’s not even a pod, not yet. It’s a pre-pod.

  CarriesRevenge01: You could say that, yes

  ElmStreetNightmare84: Okay, so describe it in pod form then

  CarriesRevenge01: I don’t know

  ElmStreetNightmare84: Genre of horror, for starters?

  CarriesRevenge01: The Halloween director said horror is a reaction, not a genre

  ElmStreetNightmare84: And Hitchcock said you can only have suspense if the audience can see the bomb ticking beneath the table. You have to tell me what’s going on! I need to know SOMETHING.

  I smile to myself. Hitchcock did say that, in a cool speech about the difference between surprise and suspense. Surprise is when you’re watching two characters talking, and a bomb goes off out of nowhere. Suspense is when you see them talking, and you, the audience, know the bomb is right there, because you saw the villain plant it. It’s a tough balance. Mysteries only work if you don’t know what’s going on, but suspense only happens when you do. The best directors play with both.

  I pause. Until now, I’ve never shared the details of my screenplay with anyone, apart from the NYU application board. I was too damn scared.

  But the way I felt today, taking a risk, I don’t know, it felt good. Besides, meeting Jake in real life, I know it for sure—even if it’s a stupid idea, he won’t judge me for it. He’ll just laugh about it.

  CarriesRevenge01: All right, it’s not really a genre, per se. It’s kind of a mix of a bunch of them. Like Cabin in the Woods, I guess, only not so many references, because CITW does it all, right? This is kind of the same idea but with a “less is more” approach.

  ElmStreetNightmare84: So like playing off clichés?

  CarriesRevenge01: Yeah it’s tentatively called The Bad Decision Handbook. It’s a play on the bad decisions people make in horror movies, you know, splitting up to look for the killer, going into an abandoned house alone, not calling the cops until it’s too late . . . but the twist is, the person who’s terrorizing them, he’s a horror director himself, and he’s using these people trapped in a cabin or whatever to make his movie. Once they figure it out, they have to use their knowledge of movies and stuff to outsmart him, which includes making some intentionally bad decisions to throw him off.

  CarriesRevenge01: So it’s like poking fun at horror movie tropes, only the characters are the ones in charge.

  There’s something nice about laying it all out there, seeing how it looks typed out.

  ElmStreetNightmare84: Wow, that’s a lot

  I freeze. Maybe I was wrong about him. Maybe, on the other side of the screen, he’s looking at my messages like Ms. Sinclair looked when I messed up my audition.

  CarriesRevenge01: I know, it’s kind of overcomplicated

  CarriesRevenge01: There are a lot of kinks to be worked out, of course. It’s just an idea. Probably not even a very good one!

  ElmStreetNightmare84: No no no, I mean that’s a lot like, you’ve got so much to go on already! I guess I thought, I don’t know why because you’re amazing, but I thought it would be simpler, kind of like a starter movie.

  CarriesRevenge01: It probably should be simpler lol

  ElmStreetNightmare84: No it should be exactly how it is

  A prick of excitement in the tips of my fingers.

  A feeling of flying again.

  CarriesRevenge01: Thanks for being my sounding board

  ElmStreetNightmare84: Anytime, it sounds amazing. Send it to me when you’re done! I want to be the first to read it!

  CarriesRevenge01: Oh, if I ever actually finish the damn thing, believe me, I will

  ElmStreetNightmare84: Promise?

  CarriesRevenge01: It’s a deal!

  ElmStreetNightmare84: Awesome. I can’t wait! I’m a huge fan of horror, obviously, and what’s more, I’m a pro at bad decisions ;)

  Instantly, I think of my stupid mistake, my very own bad decision, sending that photo. I could tell him. I could tell him right now.

  Only I don’t want to lose Elm. Or Jake.

  It’s only for a summer, I tell myself. Despite the connection I felt today, the likelihood that it will turn into anything is practically nil.

  So online, I’ll be Carrie. Horror-loving, screenplay-writing Carrie.

  And in person, I’ll be Olivia.

  It’s a clunky solution, but it’s the only way to move forward without disappointing both Elm and Jake.

  The words come easily, almost too easily.

  CarriesRevenge01: I’m a pro at bad decisions, too

  Carrie vs. Olivia

  I wake up newly inspired the next morning. It’s not even nine, and my shift doesn’t start until eleven, so I have at least an hour to write. I may have stayed up a little too late talking to Elm, but it doesn’t matter—I’m inspired.

  Elm-Jake liked the idea of my screenplay. He liked it a lot.

  And even more than that, I proved to myself that I didn’t have to be scared anymore. I faced a fear, even if it was a relatively small one, and beat it down. Maybe I can do this, too.

  My parents are out on their morning walk, and I grab a banana and return to my room, opening my laptop and sitting cross-legged on top of the covers. My desk, the old walnut one we picked up one Saturday at the Brooklyn Flea, lives in Brooklyn, not here. I could sit at the kitchen counter, but I’d rather not have my parents peeking over my shoulder, salivating at my every productive word, as soon as they get back.

  My phone buzzes, but this time, it’s not from Elm. It’s the group text, the one that Fatima started, so the “French Ladies” can keep in touch over the summer. Eloise has just sent a photo of herself doing yoga in front of a sunrise in Vermont.

  Katie responds right away with a selfie of her sipping some sort of sugary drink on a cobblestone street—looks like SoHo.

  I could add my own, show them how I’m working on the screenplay, only I don’t want to jinx it. Instead, I dash off a response—gorgeous, ladies, keep the snaps coming!—then put my phone aside.

  On my laptop, I find a Stephen King quote that feels particularly apt, then scribble it on a Post-it.

  Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.

  I stick it to the top of my laptop, but it flutters off.

  I turn around, tacking it to the space above my headboard instead.

  Only problem is, I can’t see it now; it’s behind me. I scrunch up my lips.

  My eyes flit to my laptop, the cursor blinking at me impatiently.

  Quickly, I head to my dad’s office, where he works remotely when we’re here. I grab a few sheets of computer paper and one of the Sharpies that poke out fro
m a WORLD’S BEST DAD cup I made him at one of those pottery studios when I was a kid.

  I head back to my room and write the quote out in my best handwriting. It takes a couple of tries before I get the spacing right. If I paste it to the wall next to my window, I’ll be able to see it perfectly from my bed—and lord knows, these are words I need to see.

  Except, I don’t have tape. I head to the kitchen just as my parents are coming back in.

  “Morning,” my mom says. “If we’d known you were up, we would have asked you to join us on our walk.”

  “No worries,” I say, pulling open the drawer in the kitchen island.

  “Did you get breakfast?” my dad asks.

  “A banana.”

  “Want me to make you something?” The man is a scrambled-eggs guru. “I’m back to work this week, but my first conference call isn’t until ten.”

  “I’m okay, Dad,” I say, digging through the drawer. “I’ll have some cereal before my shift.”

  “Are you going to pack a sandwich or something? Since it’s longer today?” he asks.

  It’s the Iowa in him, this anxiety over when we’re going to eat next. My grandmother feeds us these huge meals three times a day. Mornings begin with some sort of meat sizzling against cast iron.

  “What are you looking for?” my mom asks.

  “Tape.”

  “For what?”

  I shrug. “To hang something on my wall.”

  She leans over me, shuffling through the drawer herself, and pulls out these 3M hanging tabs.

  “No, it’s just a small thing. Like a sheet of paper.”

  “Oh?”

  “A quote,” I say casually. “That I find inspiring.”

  She smiles, and I know she wants to ask me more, but she doesn’t. “I think it’s in Dad’s office.”

  Tape procured, I head back to my room. It’s already nine fifteen. I’ve lost time for writing, time I should have taken advantage of, if I’d been following the very quote that sits, waiting to be tacked up, on my bed, but it’s all good.

  Quickly, I tape the quote to my wall, then head back to my bed and open my laptop. I still have forty-five minutes before I have to start getting ready and pack my lunch.